Only three original board members remain at Canary Wharf owner

Canary Wharf

Eight directors from Songbird Estates have departed following the Qatari-Brookfield takeover earlier this month.

Chairman David Pritchard and seven non-executives directors have resigned with immediate effect. They are: John Botts, Peter Harned, Jonathan Lane, Sam Levinson, Alex Midgen, Brian Niles and David O’Connor.

Three of the original board remain at the developer: Ken Costa, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Hamad Bin Jassim Al-Thani and Khaled Sultan Al-Rabban.

They will be joined by three directors from Brookfield: Richard Byron Clark, the chief executive of Brookfield Property Partners; Jon Steven Haick, chief executive of Brookfield Europe; and Brian William Kingston, president and chief investment officer of Brookfield’s global real estate group.

A spokesperson for Songbird said: “The changes simply reflect the BidCo acquiring all of the entire issued capital in Songbird – this is an entirely normal part of the acquisition process. The non-executive directors could only sit on the board so long as the former major shareholders held their shares.”

The takeover of Songbird, which owns the Canary Wharf financial district in London, was resisted by Pritchard, who said the offer by the Qatar Investment Authority and Brookfield Property Partners undervalued the business.

But its major shareholders voted in favour of the deal, which values the developer at £2.6bn.